Yesterday, the Alliance for Excellent Education held a webinar entitled, “Digital Learning and Technology: Federal Policy Recommendations to Seize the Opportunity and Promising Practices That Inspire Them.”

Long title, simple concept: We need to be using technology in our classrooms.

According to Karen Cator, Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, our education system is burdened by three crises:

1. Declining state fiscal revenues
2. Mounting teacher shortages
3. Increasing global demands for skilled workers

While there’s no easy fix for any of these problems, Cator pointed to digital learning as a way to mitigate them. Digital learning is still in its infancy, but already, educators around the nation are seeing it increase equity and access for students who want to take classes not offered at their schools; improve the effectiveness of teachers and administrators; and boost student outcomes.

These great results—along with a federal policy recommendation that prioritizes college readiness—make for an initiative that we at LTF can definitely get behind!

In fact, we have taken several measures in recent weeks to expand our use of technology to better serve the teachers and administrators who use our trainings and materials. These include the development of an LTF mobile device app (please continue to submit ideas!), online video recaps for teachers who want to refresh Summer Institute training, and an improved system for online student assessments.

Lane Robbins, our new Online Curriculum Manager, is excited about the ways that LTF is filling the need for digital learning opportunities for teachers and students. “The technology that we offer teachers and administrators is great because it’s simple, multifunctional, and effective,” she said. “And we only hope to enhance that.”

A new study released by the Detroit Free Press revealed that 30% of more than 3,000 educators acknowledged a sense of pressure to help their students cheat on standardized tests. Eight percent of the teachers actually admitted to having done it.

While we would rather discuss the Common Core Standards (Washington adopted them last Wednesday), STEM education, and the recent AP Annual Conference, cheating is unfortunately the current hot button topic in education. It’s time we speak about it too.

School districts across the United States are facing pressures due to limited resources, college readiness gaps, and college remediation. An increased rigor in new curriculum standards and a heightened importance on standardized tests certainly add to the stress that school administrators and teachers feel. Unless something changes, schools will continue to fall behind, educators will continue to appear on the news, and students will continue to suffer.

It's easy to point fingers at the teachers, the students, the parents, the administrators, and even the "system," but let's instead focus on a positive approach to recovering from the embarrassing mistakes and bad press that has recently befallen our industry.

What are your thoughts about the recent cheating scandals, and what would you propose as a solution to the problem? Of course, we would like to see quality teacher training implemented in every school district because it is proven to be effective, but we’d love to hear your ideas and thoughts as well!

Last Monday, President Obama issued a plea for CEOs to donate more to education. Today, we at Laying the Foundation are doing the same.

Melody Barnes, White House Domestic Policy Adviser, said, “There’s no other group that better understands the importance of increasing excellence in America’s schools than our business leaders.” Read the full Education Week article here.

Laying the Foundation traditionally reaches out to teachers, administrators, counselors, and other constituents in education, but President Obama’s call to action reminds us that top business executives are also stakeholders in the future of our country’s education—and economy. According to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, “Business can be an amazing partner in driving reform.”

Business leaders expect results, and LTF is an organization that can give them. Thanks to Julie Stephenson and Mike Milstead, our most recent blog post highlights results from LTF Training (along with College Board resources) at Lincoln High School in Louisiana. Additionally, our LTF Quick Guide offers a great section on results.

As a nonprofit organization, we rely heavily on outside funding from foundations, partners, sponsors, and individual donors. An investment in our nation’s teachers corps is an investment in our students, the next generation of leaders in America. If you would like to support LTF by making a financial contribution, please contact Taylor Bunn at tbunn@ltftraining.org or 214.525.3005.